Our+Hopes+for+Unseen+Education


 * Our Hopes for Unseen Education**

There is a grave problem in our world today. Besides the War on Terror and economic downturns, this predicament occurs around the corner, it affects our children, and is destroying the future of our nation. This catastrophic problem that is being described is the public education systems and for many, urban education systems. For decades now, the United States education system has been implementing acts and installing new programs to increase standardized testing scores after they hit a plateau almost 40 years ago. So every day, large populations of students are receiving the basic education if not less from public urban schools, but why? Who is to blame? The cruel reality is that we are. Lack of parental and community support, the lack of well prepared teachers, and unjust laws and ruling in the education realm of government are all contributors to our crumbling education systems. More so, urban public schools face greater challenges than any other type in the nation as students not only have to fight for a decent education but also for food in their stomachs and survival simply walking back home. With little hope, it is miraculous how some students persist and go one to be successful like Cedric Jennings from “A Hope in the Unseen”, and hopefully the children documented in “Waiting for Superman” and in the broken schools of Trenton. “The substance of faith is a hope in the unseen” (49) advises an urban school teacher to a forlorn student, and while this is true, it is not enough. Action needs to be taken to secure a child’s future as they just pass through the system, never fully receiving the deserved education. Through first hand observations, readings and research, and film media, the conclusion has been made that the urban education system is corrupt and therefore rapidly disintegrating. Every Friday afternoon, I visit Cadwalader Elementary School in Trenton to mentor a fourth grader through the Big Brothers/ Big Sisters program. It was on a special afternoon that her class was holding a pizza party to reward a group of students who had excelled in a classroom competition and my little sister invited me to join her in the celebration. As I sat there and observed for about an hour, I could not help but notice the significant differences between this school and the one I was placed in for field study no more than 6 miles away. At Lawrenceville Intermediate School (L.I.S.), located right outside of prestigious Princeton, I am observing a fourth grade class as well every Tuesday and Thursday. I have been there for about two months taking detailed notes on the teacher’s classroom management, the children’s behaviors and learning, and the overall atmosphere. The two schools are incomparable and the differences highlight the detrimental services we are providing in New Jersey urban schools.

The differences between the Cadwalader School and Lawrenceville Intermediate are apparent in every context of schooling from classroom set up, the educators, and the students. At Lawrenceville Intermediate School, the classroom teacher displays the students work as well as some manufactured and handmade posters of either learning tools or motivational phases. The classroom is plastered with colorful tools and papers and resources are kept open and accessible to students. In opposite, the fourth grade at Cadwalader Elementary School does not even reside in the main building. A trailer has been built behind the school across a busy parking lot vast with weeds and cracks. Inside, the walls are bare revealing starch white canvases with the exception of a few factory produced factual posters. Another striking difference is the demographics between the two institutions. In a class of 23 students at Lawrenceville Intermediate School, the class is homogeneously mixed with students of different race, ethnicity, and religion. However at Cadwalader, in a classroom of 21, there are only two Hispanic students while the remainder is African American. Even the majority of the educators in Trenton were African American as opposed to the majority of Caucasian teachers in Lawrencville. However, it is not race alone that divides the teachers from Lawrencville Intermediate and Cadwalader Elementary. The fourth grade Cadwalader teacher dressed in jeans, a “North Pole” T-shirts, and timberland boots; fully engaging the environments acceptable attire but what about the schools? In contrast, my cooperating teacher’s ensembles always consist of dress pants and blouses in neutral colors and of a suitable fit. Approaches to teaching are different as well as the educator from Cadwalader taught directly from the guided text while in Lawrencville Intermediate, the teacher produces creative and original assignments that typically incorporate cross curriculum practices and higher order thinking skills. Finally, the student’s behaviors and attitudes are a significant disparity between urban schools and suburban institutions. The fourth grade class in Lawrenceville is allotted a great deal of freedom which they appreciate and respect. Students work mostly independently, but for pairs or group projects, students operate cooperatively and assist one another in a non competitive manner. Cadwalader is the opposite as students were yelling, calling out, crawling on the floor, bullying other students, and criticizing one another out of jealousy and spite during my visit. The classroom in Trenton appeared to be really a holding cell for misfit students that the teacher has no desire to make into better citizens, or at least only when he desires to. Meanwhile, one town over is a class flourishing due to the dedication of their teachers and positive learning environment she has established. The differences between Cadwalader Elementary School and Lawrencville Intermediate School are shocking, but none the less, a perfect illustration of our failing urban school systems in action.

Urban education and the education system have gained national attention recently through the chilling documentary “Waiting for Superman” directed by Davis Guggenheim. The film took shape in the 90’s as a documentary about outstanding public school teachers until Guggenheim discovered a grave problem with in the education system. Hence he began work on the documentary, “Waiting for Superman” to expose the detrimental problems in America’s public schools. “Waiting for Superman” follows the lives of five young individuals as they and their parent’s strife to achieve a higher quality of education through lottery systems at prestigious, private, boarding, or charter schools. The film also explains and educates audiences on why the education system has been failing since the 1970’s despite the large number of funds that have been invested and the projects and laws that have been enforced so as to enhance public education. Through the investigation of the public education system including teachers unions, school bureaucracies, federal laws and practices, “Waiting for Superman” tackles issues that have been apparent but unanswered for decades. It has provided hope for the nation and our schools by informing teachers, parents, students, and communities of the harsh realities within our schools. While the heart wrenching “Waiting for Superman” addressed the corruption of the entire public school system which would include urban, suburban, and rural school districts. The documentary mainly films and focuses on Urban Education. Cities such as Harlem and D.C. were highly noted for obtaining some of the worst educational practices and math and literacy scores in the nation. In fact, our nation’s capital has the lowest percentage of math proficiency at 12%. In this same state, the No Child Left Behind act was enforced under the George W. Bush administration in 2001 stating that every state will be 100% proficient in math and literacy by the year 2014. We have only four more years to reach this goal, but with standardized test scores stagnant since the 1970’s, the outlook is grim for this achievement. But before we give up, perhaps trying to solve the problem through research of what has worked in the past, rediscovering the fundamentals of education that have been lost in the drive for success, and what other factors are contributing to our student’s poor performance and the escalating dropout rates. In the documentary, Guggenheim posed the question, does a bad neighborhood make a bad school or does a bad school make a bad neighborhood? Students in urban schools are challenged with more than algebra problems and timed writings; in fact, those are the least of their worries. The majority of students that attend urban schools are emerging from environments entrapped in poverty, crime, and broken homes that their attention is not on education but prime survival. “Waiting for Superman” suggests to combat such dilemmas and repair the education system as a whole is to train and hire exceptional teachers because they are the key to effective learning and successful students. However, educators are overwhelmed with growing class sizes which takes away opportunities for individualized attention, while the demands of raising standardized test scores prevents teachers from teaching to the child’s needs rather than the test. Some educators, the outstanding ones, will defy the odds and accomplish their goals of reaching every student and their needs but others who fail along with their students will simply send them along. It is an outrage that teachers push students through the system resulting second grade reading levels in eighth grade classrooms which limits the eighth grade teacher now in implementing their curriculum. Teachers are not the only culprit in designing systems of failure for their students. A principal noted in “Waiting for superman” that he knows which students will be dealing drugs, in jail, or will graduate by what high school he places them in. Several schools that obtain such high dropout rates have been coined with the term “failure factories” and the poor teachers in those schools as lemons and once a year there is the dance of the lemons. One educator explain the dance of the lemons as transferring a teacher from one school to another until they establish a suitable match and better performance by the educator than in the past school. This dance became popular after tenure was installed for tenure laws state that an educator may not be released without a cause. Hence, some teachers, such as one caught on hidden camera and presented in Guggenheims’ documentary, exhibit the philosophy “I get paid whether you learn of not”. “Waiting for Superman” was an epic film in exposing America to the corrupt education system in hopes that someone would finally come out as “Superman” to save public education.

“A Hope in the Unseen” by Ron Suskind is the true story of Cedric Lavar Jennings, a young African American male growing up in the broken D.C. education system. He attends Franklin W. Ballou Senior High School, one of the most violent and troubled urban public schools in the area. Cedric excels in math and science but is limited in his opportunities and resources to explore his passions further as he dwells below the poverty line with a single mother, Barbara Jennings and a father he occasionally sees due to his residence in the city’s jail due to drug use. “A hope in the Unseen” follows Cedric through his tormented and fearful years at Ballou as an influential and intelligent student. He manages to survive with the encouragement and support of his teachers and unveiling faith in Jesus Christ. Cedric is also driven to excel by a summer program at MIT for minority students which he reluctantly is accepted to but discovers some harsh realities on embarking in the journey. Coming from one of the lowest achieving schools in the country, Cedric is significantly behind in his studies than the other students. He struggles through the college classes and at the completion of the program is informed that he is just not “MIT material”. With Cedric’s hopes and dreams of attending MIT crushed, he returns home to beginning his senior year at Ballou and now sets his heart on another college. Brown University in Rhode Island is what Cedric stumbles upon in a college planning book, and after inquiring about the school to several teachers, he chooses to apply for its exceptional academic programs and its diverse population. MIT, Cedric felt, was undiversified, causing him isolation and discomfort. Cedric is accepted to Brown and begins yet another expedition that will test his faith, intelligence, friendships, and his identity. Cedric falters first semester with moral dilemmas of selecting all pass/fail and easier courses. He also encounters difficulty establishing friendships with people of different races but does not wish to befriend “his own kind”. However, Cedric does become fast friend with a young man named Zyad who although is white, is predominantly influenced and interested in African American popular culture. Cedric continues to toil the relationships with his roommate and other black students who attempt reaching out to him. Greater than forming secure relationships, Cedric struggles to hold on to his faith as he begins to question God and his own identity. Some of Cedric’s questions are illuminated when he enrolls in an educational field study course and is assigned to observe an urban school twice a week. The negative aspects and attitudes of his cooperating teacher question his reputation as a inner city black male and the good nature of educators and school systems. Cedric manages to pass his courses second semester after many disputes within himself and others, and returns home only to experience more hardship. When his mother fails to tell him they’re being evicted from their apartment and has to discover the day management comes to remove their things, Cedric is withdrawn and no longer speaks to his mother. Graciously, the pastor from scripture cathedral, the church they regularly attend, saves their apartment with a $2,750 loan. The novel ends in a gripping and heartfelt embrace by mother and son who profess they’ll begin taking care of one another as well as themselves. “A Hope in the Unseen” is merely one of many literary biographies subjecting corrupt urban education systems. Cedric Jennings encounters numerous teaching mal practices throughout secondary school at Ballou and even at higher institutions such as MIT and in his college career at Brown. To start, Cedric attended Frank W. Ballou Senior High School, one of the most violent and disturbed school in southeast Washington D.C. It was here that Cedric received an unequal education than students in other states, cities, and schools just because of the greater issues of poverty, drugs, alcohol, and sex had upon the school. Cedric however, because he excelled in academics, was one of the selected few in a special math and science program. “With the program, Ballou is attempting a sort of academic triage that is in vogue at tough urban schools across the country. The idea: serve as many kids as you can by separating our top students early and putting the lion’s share of resources into boosting as many of them as possible to college. Forget about the rest” (8). Still, being enrolled in tenth grade math and science courses as a freshman meant nothing in an urban school like Ballou because they were “…called ‘advanced’ but are more at a middle level of classes taught at most of the area’s suburban high schools” (9). Cedric experiences this reality first hand when he is accepted into MIT’s Minority Introduction to Engineering and Sciences program. Cedric falls detrimentally far behind in classes who’s material is foreign and in the courses he thrived in at Ballou such as Calculus, he can barely maintain an average grade despite his frantic note taking and acute attention to his studies until he accepts it. “What’s the point of putting up a false front, he finally decided, of affecting a posture like he’s some suburban doctor’s son hitting triples in every class? Yes, he’s way behind, academically. How could he not be, coming from Ballou?” (91) Cedric’s disposition in education costs him a future at MIT as Trilling, the program director, informs him that he is not ‘MIT material’. So, Cedric returns to Ballou to embark on his senior year now searching for new colleges to apply to. He discovers Brown university and by the recommendation of the few supportive teachers at Ballou, is thankfully accepted and sees this as his ticket out considering over half of his class that does graduate will attend a ‘safe school’ such as D.C.U. In his acceptance to an Ivy League school, Cedric experiences a whole new set of teaching practices, both good and bad and in places he least expected it. In Cedric’s transition to Brown, he struggles immensely with his identity and relationships with people of different races and ethnicities. He refused to ‘be with his own kind’ but could not relate or conform to the suburban white boy attitude and lifestyle. In his quest for self discovery, Cedric is reminded of scripture from Pastor Long because for so long, that was his only form or legitimate schooling and so it stuck with him. “‘I was always taught in church that education is the way. My pastor would always say, people fail because of lack of knowledge. This knowledge included God’s world and important information that can help anyone better society” (241). Back inside the classroom, Cedric struggles his first semester establishing all of his classes as pass/fail and again his lack of previous schooling sets his at a disadvantage in learning more advanced material. Cedric reluctantly finds an individual he can relate to. In a conversation he overhears a professor of his proclaim to a colleague his setbacks in education and how they negatively impact him currently. “But you see, it has been a huge transition for me coming here, being brought here under the guise of equality…I am constantly having to play catch up with guys how’ve spend that past five years speaking three languages, visiting Europe, and reading all the right books. Here at Brown, they say ‘don’t worry; you’re all equal, stating on the same footing. Ready, set, go!’ They just don’t get it …I didn’t have that kind of access, accesses that could empower me” (193). Otherwise, Cedric’ college experience is procedural and normal. The professor lecture and give a midterm (sometimes two), a final, projects, and papers assignments, they are ready and available to meet with and hold intelligent conversations with students, and the work is lengthy and daunting but most certainly doable and at a competitive rate too. Although, in one particular class of Cedric’s in his second semester at Brown, a seminar in High School Education, the professor assigns them a unique task of observing a classroom, recording their findings in a field log, and then composing two papers about it. It is in Cedric’s excursions to Slater Junior High School, an urban school similar but perhaps not as threatening as Ballou, that he is enraged by the educational practices by his classroom teacher Mr. Fleming, and for the first time observes the lack of hope in broken schools. Upon Cedric’s first day observing, Mr. Fleming discloses to him that he knows which students are going to die after they leave the school. “He can tell the one ‘that’ll die when they leave here.’ How can he tell? They’re just kids! He’s writing them off before they get a chance…Fleming treats them like they’re worthless, like he’s looking right through them” (284). Cedric continues to disapprove of Fleming’s maltreatment of his students and so passionately records this in his midterm paper. “For teachers, hostility is not on the prescribed diet, but hope will keep the kids from causing a riot. Calling kids stupid is not the right way to go; this will only stop the educational flow. These kids are brighter than the teachers think. Some can audit taxes in a blink, Instead their minds are deteriorating with their kind, leaving educators in an ever tightening band…their minds are eager can’t you see, these kids are yearning for real diversity. But teachers are always telling kids, ‘no you can’t’, so the kids end up fighting and darkening their chants. They want to be challenged, but their brains slip into ease, withholding their knowledge is like being a big tease. All this yields is a lack of respect. Homogeneous grouping may be the prime suspect” (301). Before Cedric finishes his first year of college, he is visited by a former teacher and friend, Mr. Taylor who is passing through the area and in their discussion he finally realizes what he must do to reach the unseen place. In all of Cedric years of school, he has always been equip to unlock the unseen with knowledge, determination, and self discovery and despite the hardships and inadequate education he received, he still had hope to make it to the unseen.

The urban education system as illustrated through media, literature, and personal observations is currently hopeless. Every day, students walk through double doors with the eagerness to learn as they thirst for knowledge but grow increasingly parched because the river has run dry. But, it is the mission of future and current educators to fill the wells of education and supply our students with optimal experiences and the best education they can receive. It is a human right to receive education but currently, students are unequally served, making it now more of a privilege. Since when was education a privilege?! The time to act is right now. You can write a letter to your congressmen or your states educational chair stating that it is time to restore America’s education systems to be equal and purposeful to students everywhere. Cedric Jennings may have made it through, but there is still the fourth grade class at the Cadwalader School and the five students documented in “Waiting for Superman” that are still holding out for hope for a better education than they are receiving right now. We owe it to ourselves, having gone through corrupt systems of education and having the power to secure our futures through the children who attend the same schools. It is time to transform the education system and urban education systems from hopeless visions to faithful lands. This, I can see.